Additional Language to Add - Esperanto

[Code6]

I see so many languages in the Localization.txt file for 7 Days to Die, but the most widely spoken international auxiliary language is not among them.  My dream is that the Fun Pimps would add Esperanto as an officially supported language.  If Minecraft can do it, then certainly 7 Days to Die can do it better.

I am currently supporting a modlet which provides an Esperanto translation of the game, but it is not the same as having it included in the game.

  https://www.nexusmods.com/7daystodie/mods/1672

(I have been translating since A19, but it is a work in progress because each new alpha brings new strings to translate.  A21 has given me plenty of new work.)

 

[BFT2020]

I see so many languages in the Localization.txt file for 7 Days to Die, but the most widely spoken international auxiliary language is not among them.  My dream is that the Fun Pimps would add Esperanto as an officially supported language.  If Minecraft can do it, then certainly 7 Days to Die can do it better.

I am currently supporting a modlet which provides an Esperanto translation of the game, but it is not the same as having it included in the game.

  https://www.nexusmods.com/7daystodie/mods/1672

(I have been translating since A19, but it is a work in progress because each new alpha brings new strings to translate.  A21 has given me plenty of new work.)

Why would TFP add Esperanto as an officially supported language when it is not even in the top 33 languages worldwide?  Maybe if one of the developers is adamant about the language and they give them the go ahead to put some time into translating everything into Esperanto......


Language


Total Number of Speakers


English


1,452,000,000


Mandarin Chinese


1,118,000,000


Hindi


602,200,000


Spanish


548,300,000


French


274,100,000


Standard Arabic


274,000,000


Bengali


272,700,000


Russian


258,200,000


Portuguese


257,700,000


Urdu


231,300,000


Indonesian


199,000,000


German


134,600,000


Japanese


125,400,000


Nigerian Pidgin


120,700,000


Marathi


99,100,000


Telugu


95,700,000


Turkish


88,100,000


Tamil


86,400,000


Yue Chinese


85,600,000


Vietnamese


85,300,000


Tagalog


82,300,000


Wu Chinese


81,800,000


Korean


81,700,000


Iranian Persian (Farsi)


77,400,000


Hausa


77,100,000


Egyptian Spoken Arabic


74,800,000


Swahili


71,400,00


Javanese


68,300,000


Italian


67,900,000


Western Punjabi


66,400,000


Kannada


64,000,000


Gujarati


62,000,000


Thai


60,700,000

 

[Code6]

Why would TFP add Esperanto as an officially supported language when it is not even in the top 33 languages worldwide?

Thanks for asking.  The community of Esperanto speakers may not be large in comparison to many national languages, but it is populated with people who chose to learn it rather than simply being taught as a child.  As an international auxiliary language, its purpose is to foster communication between people that speak those top 33 languages.  Using Esperanto, I have played video games with people that speak Spanish, Portuguese, German, Russian, and French.  All of which are languages that I will never learn.  But I did learn Esperanto and that is an example of how a language spoken by relatively few people can be useful.  Esperantists are always looking for new media in their chosen language. So the benefits of an IAL grow when there are more games, books, etc. that support it.  Each of the people that come to 7 Days to Die because of Esperanto will happily mention it to others.  And that is just another avenue for word of mouth to spread the news about a great game.

Maybe if one of the developers is adamant about the language and they give them the go ahead to put some time into translating everything into Esperanto......

I doubt whether TFP uses their developers to translate 7 Days To Die into the other languages that the game already supports.  But there are other options for translating a game.  For example, Mojang supports the translation of Minecraft into Esperanto on Crowdin.  https://crowdin.com/project/minecraft/eo

I know several Esperantists who volunteer their time to contribute to the game in a language they love.

And of course, as I alluded to in my original post, I have translated the majority of the text in the game (and there is a lot of it), so I would be first in line to work on an official translation.

 

[SylenThunder]

I believe that TFP use a commercial service to add languages to the game. There would have to be enough demand for additional languages, and support from the service. They are not likely to incorporate fan contributions. Not only because of lack of support, but also because they cannot reasonably validate the content.

Otherwise, it isn't too difficult to edit localization to add a new language. Just like the mod that you linked for Minecraft, you can make a similar mod for 7 Days. That is fully supported in the game right now.

 

[Code6]

I believe that TFP use a commercial service to add languages to the game. There would have to be enough demand for additional languages, and support from the service. They are not likely to incorporate fan contributions. Not only because of lack of support, but also because they cannot reasonably validate the content.

Otherwise, it isn't too difficult to edit localization to add a new language. Just like the mod that you linked for Minecraft, you can make a similar mod for 7 Days. That is fully supported in the game right now.

This is the Pimp Dreams topic.  Come and dream along with me.

I am familiar with the ability to mod.  The link I posted is for the mod that I created to add Esperanto to the game.  Unfortunately mods require people to install them.  Although it is simple, not everyone is up to the task of finding, downloading, and putting the files in the right location.  And what about the console players?  Additionally, when one changes the language to something that is not officially supported, it breaks the compass display.  And finally, although the alphabet of Esperanto can be displayed in the game, the in-game item search doesn't work with any of the letters that don't align with English.

I have heard the argument about not being able to validate volunteer content before.  If that is not a problem for a hugely popular game like Minecraft, is that really a concern for 7 Days to Die which has a tiny fraction of the Minecraft player base?  I'm not suggesting that TFP take the work of one person, but rather they could start an official Crowdin project and get the benefit of multiple translators double checking the work.

 

[Riamus]

Thanks for asking.  The community of Esperanto speakers may not be large in comparison to many national languages, but it is populated with people who chose to learn it rather than simply being taught as a child.  

I'm not against language support but what you describe is something that I would personally put far down the list for adding to a game.  The reason is what you describe.  If the language is a language learned by choice and not taught as a child (at least, not normally), then that means the people who know the language know other languages as well.

I would rather support languages where people do not know other languages so they can play the game than just a language of convenience like this.  After all, each player can choose their own language even in multiplayer.  There isn't a need for an auxiliary language in the game.  You can use it when using voice chat or text chat to communicate with each other but there isn't any real benefit for it on the game.

I assume you can play the game without trouble understanding the text when set to your native language?  I assume the others who use Esperanto also can understand the game in their own native language.  So there isn't really benefit in adding it other than "just because".

All that being said, I don't see any reason not to add it if they want to.  I just think adding actual native languages is a far better use of time.  Perhaps this one could cover some native languages for certain people who learn it but it would help anyone who didn't choose to learn it in that language.

 

[Code6]

I assume you can play the game without trouble understanding the text when set to your native language?  I assume the others who use Esperanto also can understand the game in their own native language.

If two people share Esperanto as a common language and neither knows the native language of the other, then the scenario you are describing would require them both to translate everything on the fly into Esperanto.  Having the game presented in Esperanto permits both players to easily use the same terminology to collaborate during cooperative play.

I'm not against language support but what you describe is something that I would personally put far down the list for adding to a game.

I assume that you don't speak Esperanto, so it makes sense that you would say that.  I don't speak Chinese, Russian, or French, so I don't really care if the game is available in those languages, BUT I can see how it would be useful to others, even though many games are only available in English/Spanish.
It is not difficult to add a new language to the game, so it is not necessary to limit consideration only to languages known by many people.  The flaw in that thinking is that there is also no way to guess how many German, Spanish or Chinese speakers (who don't know English) will be interested in purchasing the game.  One could argue that the most efficient approach would be to only publish the game in English and Spanish like many games do.  But additional languages are added because variety is the spice of life.

 

[Riamus]

If two people share Esperanto as a common language and neither knows the native language of the other, then the scenario you are describing would require them both to translate everything on the fly into Esperanto.  Having the game presented in Esperanto permits both players to easily use the same terminology to collaborate during cooperative play.

I assume that you don't speak Esperanto, so it makes sense that you would say that.  I don't speak Chinese, Russian, or French, so I don't really care if the game is available in those languages, BUT I can see how it would be useful to others, even though many games are only available in English/Spanish.
It is not difficult to add a new language to the game, so it is not necessary to limit consideration only to languages known by many people.  The flaw in that thinking is that there is also no way to guess how many German, Spanish or Chinese speakers (who don't know English) will be interested in purchasing the game.  One could argue that the most efficient approach would be to only publish the game in English and Spanish like many games do.  But additional languages are added because variety is the spice of life.

There aren't many things in the game that can't be simply translated as you speak if you know two languages.  The things that might not translate perfectly are POI names and perhaps perks.  These don't really even need perfect translations, though.  It isn't like POI names are real world locations you need to get correct.  You can call them anything you want.  Other things are easily translated as you speak.   "Can you make me a tier 4 stone axe?" would translate easily between languages, not needing any in-game translation.  You do have a point in regards to things like POI names but these aren't regularly needed to be said, so the need to translate is minimal, imo.

There is a difference between saying a language that isn't a native language is important versus saying a native language is important.  If someone speaks only their native language, they can't easily play a game that isn't in that language.  On the other hand, if someone speaks their native language and an auxiliary language, if the game is in their native language, they can easily play it.  Two very different things.  As far as knowing sales numbers, I'm sure they have a good idea how many people buy the game in various countries and can estimate quite well which languages are needed to get the most people playing the game.

Let me ask you this... You obviously speak English.  I'm assuming that isn't your native language?  I would expect that many people who decide to learn an auxiliary language will also learn one of the top languages spoken in the world as well (or instead of an auxiliary language).  Knowing a language spoken by a large percentage of the population has great benefits.  Knowing an auxiliary language spoken by a relative few may be nice but isn't going to offer the same kind of benefits.  And if they learned one of the more popular languages, they can use that to communicate instead of an auxiliary language in the game if they choose.

Also, it has been a very long time since I have seen a game that was translated in other languages that was only available in English and Spanish.  In most cases, there are at least 5-6 languages to choose from if there is any translation available.  Very few go into translations that are not among the most-used languages in the world or the language of the developer.  Those that do will still usually pick languages that are among the top 20-30 languages.

You are correct that translations are easy.  However, they are time consuming.  And if a third party translation service is used, they cost money for each translation.  Can you say that a language of convenience that is spoken by relatively few people in the world is worth more than a native language spoken by far more people?  I personally would rather see them spend resources on translations for native languages before a language of convenience.  There are a LOT of languages in the world.  No game will provide translations for all of them.  Games that allows mods can have fan translations, which helps.  But official translations are going to be limited.  They have to pick ones that have the greatest impact rather than ones that might just be nice to have.

 

[Code6]

I only speak English and Esperanto.  I once tried to learn Polish, but it was very difficult for me.  Esperanto is much easier to learn than most natural languages.  The concept of a secondary international language is interesting to me.  I think gaming is a great way to meet people from around the world and so is Esperanto.  So I combined Esperanto with my favorite game and I wanted to share it with everyone.  Plus I am so tired of my fellow Esperanto speakers saying that Minecraft is better.